Three albums in and Bloc Party are darker, dancier and groovier. Where once they relied upon artsy post-punk guitars shapes and riffs with frenetic clattering drums, now their stock in trade is gothic Bloc-rockin’ beats. Live the tracks are hypnotic screeching, crunching grooves best demonstrated by the single Mercury and new album Intimacy’s opening track Ares, with its crashing pace recalling The Chemical Brothers’ Setting Sun.
The band’s show at The Forum was the second in our run of four Q Awards: The Gigs with Russian Standard Vodka shows and a return to a more intimate venue allowing fans to get out up close after a run of festival shows this summer.
Frontman Kele Okoreke makes a compelling focal point with his horizontal hiccupping vocal lines, stylistically similar to Flowers Of Romance-era
Lydon (famously, not a friend of the band) and lizard-on-hot-sand dancing but it is drummer Matt Tong whose thunderous racket steals the show. Was that dry ice or the steaming sweat pumping from his soaking torso throughout
the show?
It is a set littered with tracks from all three albums but earlier singles such as Helicopter, So Here We Are and Banquet, get the wildest responses, although The Prayer is also well received.
The band can clearly be touchy about their reaction though. Even though the show was an instant sell-out and he audience were pumping the air throughout, Bloc Party seemingly sensed all was not well. Okoreke suggested there was a “hostile crowd”, while one of his bandmates chipped in that “there’s a lot of booing going on”. Whether they are really bothered or not, the band ploughed on regardless, unwilling to leave until they have completed their second set of encores.
[View a gallery of live shots from the show here]
1:45 PM | 01/10/2008
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